First-Time Thanksgiving Hosts, Here’s a Menu for You

Is this the year you’re finally hosting Thanksgiving? Perhaps your family has passed the legacy on to you, or you’re adopting a new tradition of hosting loved ones every year. Regardless, we’ve got the perfect menu planned for you. It includes all the Thanksgiving classics your family and friends love and expect: a crowd-pleasing stuffing, flavor-packed cranberry sauce and (of course) a showstopper of a centerpiece. What it doesn’t include? Anything too demanding of time or technique. In fact, we’ve included simplified, pared-down versions of some of the dishes to account for some wiggle room in case your dinner prep schedule starts to fall behind. If it does, don’t worry: we’ve all been there. (Serve appetizers, blast music and keep the drinks flowing!)

Our First-Time Thanksgiving Menu

To start, whet guests’ appetites with something that’s creamy, salty, tangy and slightly spicy—but not so heavy they won’t have room for the whole meal. To make this even easier, purchase pickled peppers at the store and slice them yourself. You can even prepare the toast ahead.

Gravy seems like a simple dish—and it mostly is—but it can be a bit of a stressor when you’ve never made it before and the pressure’s on to make it happen as the turkey’s coming out of the oven. Prevent that kind of stress by leaning on our Turkey Gravy Base, which allows you to make the dish ahead.

This is one of our most popular recipes of all time, and for good reason: It’s beautiful and delicious. Wrapping the bacon around the beans is gratifying kitchen task; employ little helpers in the kitchen if you have them.

Whether you call it dressing or stuffing, you’ll agree on this: our crunchy version with bacon and leeks is delicious. It’s also infinitely adaptable based on what you have: use onions in place of leeks, ham in place of bacon, and so forth.